Education reporter

Political gridlock in Washington is holding back the American economy and preventing meaningful steps that could reverse the country’s growing income inequality between the rich and the poor and middle class, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin told a University of Georgia audience Tuesday.

The nation’s economic health could be improved with a combination of stimulus and long-term fiscal discipline, but sensible economic policies are not likely to come out of the nation’s capital at this time, said Rubin, who served as Treasury secretary during Bill Clinton’s presidency.

A former highly paid Citigroup banker and now co-chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, Rubin is also a co-founder of The Hamilton Project, a think tank for economic policy.

Like no other nation on earth, the United States has the potential for strong economic growth in the future, said Rubin, in Athens to deliver an annual lecture on public service sponsored and supported by UGA alumnus and lawyer Keith Mason.

But business leaders don’t expect to see much growth in the near future, Rubin told an overflow crowd in the UGA Chapel.

Sound fiscal policy could boost growth, create jobs and reduce poverty, said Rubin, but instead of trying to be effective at governing, many lawmakers in the nation’s capital don’t even try, opting instead for ideology, he said.

The movement toward this polarized, ineffective national government has been building for decades, he said.

But even as recently as the 1990s, the Clinton administration and Congress were “able to accomplish quite a bit,” said Rubin, 75, who has been criticized for some of the policies that emerged during that time.

Some critics believe deregulation of the banking industry at the end of the Clinton presidency was an important factor in the big recession that began in 2008.

Part of the gridlock is because many people live in congressional districts where most of the people think alike, partly because of gerrymandering and partly because more and more, people are choosing to live in districts of like-minded people, he said.

It’s a vicious cycle, and political dialogue is “hollowed out at the center,” he said.

A Gallup poll last summer showed that only 10 percent of Americans had confidence in the Congress, he said. People also distrust other institutions such as the media and the presidency.

“I don’t believe our democracy can succeed if our people don’t have confidence in our institutions,” he said.

But Rubin said he thinks the climate can change for the better.

“I have a very affirmative view about the future of this country,” he said.

Politics can change quickly, but voters have to insist leaders be committed to governing and to accepting principled compromise, he said.